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Huffard has spent years working the front of house in some of Oakland’s hippest dining establishments, among them Barlata, Duende, and Penrose. Janson is an artisan wood worker and furniture maker who counts among his clients several of the small, hipster-friendly businesses that line the alley, including Crimson Horticultural Rarities, Marisa Haskell jewelry, and Temescal Alley Barbershop. The pair own a property in East Oakland with a half-acre of land dotted with fruit trees on which they practice urban farming, gardening, and their true love, home brewing.

“Home brewing is a shared passion and it’s actually how we ended up in a relationship together,” says Huffard. “I was doing a lot of gardening and urban farming and wanted to get into brewing. Luke was doing a lot of brewing and wanted to get into gardening, and we connected after many years of being out of touch over a beer. Five years later we’re married.”And now, these DIY-devoted Oakland denizens are taking their passion to the next level by opening Roses‘, a boutique brewery and taproom in prime territory on Telegraph Ave. by Doña Tomas and Pizzaiolo and adjacent to Temescal Alley. They’re taking over one of the neighborhood’s older businesses, The Shaver & Cutlery Shop (which is moving to another location on Telegraph closer to downtown).

The idea for Rose’s, Huffard says, is to create a “human scale brewery. We’ll have all the capacity to make myriad different style beers and offer them to the public in an intimate and warm, welcoming environment.” Which would be in sharp contrast to the stark, lofty, airplane hanger-ish vibe that’s so common among modern-day brewery/taprooms.

Perhaps not coincidentally to the prevailing design aesthetic, Huffard says, is that this is an industry that’s been overwhelmingly dominated by men.

“We feel that beer culture is changing, but historically it’s been a male dominated market, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to expand that,” she says. “A lot of that has to do with the ambiance, and as a female brewer, that’s something I want to be able to broadcast into the greater community.”

Which isn’t to say the beer will be dumbed down. Janson says that after four years brewing together, the pair has mastered more than 200 recipes. The plan is to offer a constantly changing lineup of around six beers brewed onsite on their 7-gallon tank system.

“Everything from the most classic Czech pilsner to the strangest barrel aged beers aged with loquats—they’re all in our wheelhouse,” he says. “We just want to make sure that we have a balanced portfolio and most importantly, that whatever we put out, we want it to be exceptional.”

So instead of triple, quadruple, and quintuple-hopped IPAs on the menu, customers might instead find a brew fermented from wild yeast cultivated in their garden or a Belgian golden strong ale spiked with hibiscus and peppercorn that’s loosely inspired by the couple’s dearly loved and recently deceased white-and-fuchsia cockatoo.

“But it isn’t something that tastes like a Jolly Rancher,” Janson stresses. “You can drink this beer and identify it immediately as a Belgian strong ale. The aroma might be a little fruitier and more aggressive, but it’s not so beyond what makes beer good that it becomes unidentifiable… We’re going to be experimental, but also absolutely grounded in brewing tradition.”

Which comes back to their main point: That they want Rose’s to be accessible to everyone in an increasingly family-friendly Temescal neighborhood, not just hipsters and beer nerds. To that end, the taproom will be an all-ages establishment, not 21-plus, and will eventually offer home brewing courses to the public. They’ll also have growlers to go, as well as some sort of membership program.

As for food, they won’t be making any themselves, but instead hope to leverage Huffard’s connections in the restaurant industry to put together a nice selection of small bites—bread from Pizzaiolo, for example, served with charcuterie by Duende’s Paul Canales and cheese from a local dairy bartered in exchange for spent grain.